This invention relates to methods and systems for managing family and household activities of subscribers, in particular for integrating such information with vendors and companies via the Internet.
A number of applications for organizing data and schedules are known in the art. These applications can be either stand-alone or can operate among groups of users which may be linked, for example, via an Intranet. Also known in the art are Internet-based services that provide promotional and advertising material, such as special sales, special fares or merchandise coupons, to users who may have signed up for these services or may be targeted by advertisers and retailers based on demographic user profiles. Users may also select specific areas of interest, but these services may be limited to selected topics, such as travel, cars, etc. In daily family life, however, various tasks which may be interrelated have to be performed, some of them repeatedly and at regular time intervals. Family events, such as birthdays, anniversaries, have to be monitored; there may be an interest in consolidating financial statements and shop for the best available offers based on the family resources.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide to a subscriber an integrated household management system which administers household tasks.
The invention is directed to a method for managing household activities of a user connected to a service system, in particular via the Internet. According to the method, the user provides to the service system user data which include demographic user information and interactive user behavior characteristics, whereafter the service systemxe2x80x94in response to the user dataxe2x80x94provides the user with a household management tool. The user schedules the household activities by using the household management tool, wherein information about the scheduled household activities is transmitted from the user to the service system. The service system associates a scheduled household activity with an incentive and transmits the incentive to the user.
Embodiments of the invention may include one or more of the following features. The incentive may be provided to the service system by a provider, such as a retailer, a manufacturer, a service provider and/or a clearing house. The household management tool may include a scheduler and/or calendar and the scheduled household activity may be a meal schedule relating to recipes managed by the service system.
Other objects of the invention will, in part, be obvious, and, in part, be shown from the following description of the systems and methods shown herein.